I came to uni knowing how to cook pasta, pasta sauce and cheese on toast with beans. Not exactly a good diet to live on for the rest of the year. My parents had done a shop round Morrison’s on my first day and had bought things that “would go nice in a curry” and are “excellent staple foods” but, although I was nodding along with them, I had no clue. Luckily my Gran had bought me a vegetarian student cookbook (although, technically I’m a pescetarian as I eat fish) and I decided, with this, that I would take on the daunting challenge of learning how to cook.
On my second day, my flatmate and I did a tour of Kirkgate market – if you haven’t already been and discovered it, I can’t stress enough how much you need to go. Anyone in second or third year will tell you to do all your shopping there, and they’re not wrong.
TIP: If you get your timing right (roughly 4 o’clock on a weekday) the market sellers discount all their fruit and veg. On one trip alone I got a big bag of potatoes, three peppers, about ten tomatoes and a load of mushrooms for under £3! You can’t get that in the supermarket. Oh, and have I told you about my two salmon fillets for £1.50? I think you get the picture…
So armed with my cookbook and lots of ingredients, I set about the task of learning to cook.
I’ve had a few ups and downs, but most of my meals have turned out a success. One of the most memorable recipes was when I decided to do Pasta-packed Red Peppers – a lot easier said than done. The ingredients said mini macaroni, which I obviously didn’t have, so just used regular penne pasta as a substitute. After cooking the pasta and slicing my peppers in half, I realised that the pasta (mixed with chopped tomatoes, grated cheese and parsley) wasn’t going to fit inside the peppers. However, not to be deterred, I decided to chop my pasta in half. Yes, that’s right I sat for a good 10 minutes cutting up pasta, much to the amusement of my flatmates! But after the chopping they fitted perfectly!
Another recipe that wasn’t quite as straight forward as I’d have hoped was Cashew Nut and Green Pepper Risotto. It seemed relatively simple according to the instructions: literally frying the onion and pepper, adding sweetcorn and rice, then stirring in the vegetable stock, but for some reason I was stood at the hob stirring in the vegetable stock for a good hour and a half! Apparently the first time you make risotto it always takes a long time, and the more you make the faster you get. Hmm. Well, despite it taking ages it tasted really good! I’d also added green beans and peas too for extra veg.
TIP: Cooking large quantities of food and then freezing it is one of the best things I’ve discovered. You’ve instantly created healthy ready meals for those nights when you really can’t be bothered to put in the effort of cooking a meal. Risotto, lasagne and pasta bakes work really well.
A more successful and quite spontaneous dish I made was Meringues – made simply from some left over egg whites and sugar. This didn’t come from my recipe book, I just Googled it. The only problem was that we didn’t have an electric whisk and neither did anyone else in the whole block. However, again I was determined to make them so set off whisking by hand. About 12 people each took a turn and a few hours later the meringues were eventually of a consistency that ‘formed stiff peaks.’ I’d set the oven for 150°C so popped them in and then immediately turned the temperature down to 140°C (thank you Delia) before leaving them to bake for 35 minutes. The timing was a rough (and lucky) guess, as according to the internet there are many different ways to make meringue. Once the timer sounded I turned off the oven and left them in there overnight whilst my friends and I went out and did what students do best: get drunk.
They turned out to be a huge success and actually looked like that picture! Firm on the outside, gooey on the inside. What a fluke!
Other fast and yummy meals that my flatmate swears by are stir-frys. She eats them religiously as they’re really healthy and don’t include any carbs. This avoids committing “carbicide” as she puts it. But they’re excellent for using up left over veg as you just whack it all in a pan on a high heat for a few minutes. Also omelettes are another goody as, again, you can put pretty much anything in them!
I was quite glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d turned up at uni not knowing a thing about cooking. In the first few weeks there was what we now refer to as ‘The Broccoli Incident’ involving my flatmate trying to cook a whole half of broccoli in something that looked liked gravy without cutting it up – it simply just didn’t occur to him to cut it. Obviously this was very amusing for the rest of us.
Another flatmate had to ask at one point if water had to be boiled before you cooked the pasta… Needless to say (after living on pasta for a good week) they were a very quick learner and are now an excellent cook – making tuna burgers and lots more adventurous recipes.
Uni is all a learning curve, not just academically. Not relying on your parents to magically generate meals is something you quickly need to get your head around. Cooking takes a lot longer than you first assume, but at the end of the day its pretty fun experimenting and is a great procrastination from uni work. I still haven’t mastered a curry so that’ll be my next challenge and if it turns out to be disgusting, I’ve always got the old faithful: pasta.
Pasta-packed Red Peppers
Ingredients: 125g mini macaroni (or regular pasta but be prepared to chop it in half!); 4 red peppers, cored, deseeded and halved (I just used 1 pepper as I was only cooking for myself, this recipe serves 4 people); 2 large tomatoes; grated cheese; 2 spring onions (didn’t have any so didn’t include them); 2 tablespoons of parsley; 3 tablespoons of olive oil; salt and pepper.
- Heat oven to 180°c (350°F), gas mark 4
- Cook pasta
- Place peppers on a baking sheet with the skins facing down.
- Mix pasta, tomatoes, cheese, spring onions and parsley in a bowl. Spoon the mixture into the peppers, glug over olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes until the filling is golden and bubbling.
Cashew Nut and Green Pepper Risotto
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil; 1 onion, finely sliced; 1 green pepper, cored, deseeded and finally sliced; 125g of sweetcorn; 300g of brown rice or risotto rice (or any rice really!); 900ml hot vegetable stock; bit of soy sauce and some cashew nuts. I also added green beans and peas.
- Heat oil in a large frying pan, add the onion and pepper and fry gently for about 5 mins until soft.
- Add sweetcorn and rice and cook, stirring for 1 min.
- Stir in stock a bit at a time so the rice absorbs it and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes until the rice is tender. (This is the bit that took me an hour and a half stirring in all the stock! If in doubt use less stock.)
- Stir in soy sauce and cashew nuts and cook for a further 5-10mins until all stock is absorbed.
Check out my attempt at vegetarian burgers and chips in my first video post!
Recipes taken from ‘The Vegetarian Student Cookbook’ – Hamlyn